News
Local

Sir John Johnson Manor House seeks $900,000 for repairs and maintenance

The chairman of the Sir John Johnson Manor committee, Ellery Lafave, says it needs help to step up its fundraising efforts to pay for expensive restoration work on the building on Thursday, May 25, 2017, in Williamstown, Ont.

Topics

Related Stories

The committee that oversees the Sir John Johnson Manor House is looking for people to help it launch a more aggressive round of fundraising to help restore the 18th-century estate.

Members of the committee gathered at the manor on Thursday evening for a regular meeting, during which they discussed the need for additional help in raising money to pay for the $900,000 in restoration work they want to do on the historic building and its surrounding property.

The committee has been having some success with its fundraising efforts held so far this year. A recently-held fashion show held in the small community raised almost $3,500. But committee chairman Ellary Lafave said raising a few thousand dollars with one or two events a year isn’t enough. He told committee members they need to step up their fundraising game, and they may need outside help to do it.

“We need to reach out to a group of people or an individual to see if they can come up with a strategy to help guide the committee on how to raise money,” said Ellary Lafave. “We need someone who can say that we should start doing this or that, and start making a plan on how to start moving us to phase two of our fundraising.”

Ellary pointed out the Nor’Westers and Loyalist Museum in Williamstown has brought someone on board to help it with its fundraising efforts, and argued the Sir John Johnson Manor House should do the same.

The Sir John Johnson Manor House is a historic site currently run by Parks Canada with the longstanding help of the community committee. The estate itself was one of the holdings of John Johnson, who played a major role in resettling loyalists fleeing the United States in the aftermath of the American Revolution.

The house is the better part of 300 years old and needs plenty of upkeep and maintenance, which the committee has been helping to provide since the 1990s. The committee has a to-do list that would require $900,000 to complete.

The fundraising subcommittee needs more people to sit on it, said Lafave, and it currently doesn’t have anyone to chair it.

“This is a serious situation, and we need some kind of guidance,” he said. “And we need a plan, even if it’s for five or ten years.”